Humans have a habit of thinking in a linear fashion. It’s not
hard to know why we do this. Like a lot of human mental activity, it’s a short
cut that saves us effort and energy: like fast thinking that Daniel Kahneman in
‘Fast Thinking, Slow Thinking’ talks about . We like to think in terms of, ‘this
leads to that, then that’. It also makes a complex world easier to understand
even though we may be operating off false assumptions a lot of the time.

Humans like to find causation even when phenomena are only
associated. This is a common error we make that when things occur close
together in a temporal way. We make a giant cognitive leap to make one cause
the other when, in fact, there is no relationship between them at all, other
that they occurred at roughly the same time. The other mistake is to assume
that if we change one thing then it will change another. A more critical error
is that changing something will not have unexpected effects. This is one of the
lessons of complexity theory and the difficulty of predicting effect. Small
events can lead to huge change (the butterfly effect) and seemingly large
events can have miniscule effect. Restructuring comes to mind in the latter
case and making a poor management hire in the former.

Explanations are important to us and if there isn’t a
convenient one at hand then we find one: hence our predilection for
superstition in all its various forms.

The problem with linear thinking is that it is not always as
logical as we like to think. Recent neuroscience research has shown that
emotion plays a huge role in what we like to believe is logical thinking. It
appears that’s we make decisions largely based on how we feel about the
situation and then use logic to rationalise it afterwards. This happens in
nanoseconds but occurs in that sequence nonetheless. It has long been known
that we will be swayed by the opinion of someone we admire or respect (and vice
versa) rather than consider the facts. The effect of powerful people in groups
on opinion is well known from the research on group-think and the Asch
experiments. The Challenger explosion that killed six astronauts a school
teacher and the more recent Deep Water Horizon oil explosion in the Gulf of Mexico
are powerful examples of how our ability to make decisions can be deeply
flawed. These might be extreme examples but we make the same mistakes that
occurred in these cases everyday in organisations with less catastrophic results
but results nonetheless: poor ones.

As managers in organisations we like to think that our
decisions and views are based on logic but that is often far from the truth. That
is why it is recommended that decision-making needs to be a participative activity
using some of the techniques found in process and system thinking such as the
Search Process, for example (there are many others). We need to make sure that
people who feel free to criticise, and some who are good at it, are included in
the process. The facts need to be sifted through time and time again and
checked against the final decision to make sure that it is indeed based on
logic and not a single person’s preference.

In a famous experiment by Weick and Sutcliffe they looked
for a highly hazardous environment to examine decision-making and
organisational behaviour. They chose the deck of an aircraft carrier with
planes zooming in and out on a moving platform, tons of highly inflammable fuel
and, of course, explosive devices of all sorts. One of the findings was that in
that workplace expertise outranked rank.
It is a great reminder about the fallibility of thinking you are THE
decision-maker, and about the problem of power when one is in a leadership
position. Certainly, someone might have to make a final decision when the
weight is balanced. However, some managers like to think that they have a
divine right to rule, to decide. We know the psychological effect that power
has on people. Lord Acton was right on the corrupting effect of power, not in a
moral sense, but in the way we assume superiority. It is a flaw in the way we
think about organisational management that we EXPECT a single person to take
responsibility for decision-making.

Monday, August 12, 2013

In my last blog I talked about emotional contagion: an awful
infection where the mood of a person can rub off on other people and create
either a positive or, sadly, a negative atmosphere. This happens quite out of
our awareness, like a lot of things that affect us, and it may be that sometimes
we never quite understand why we feel particularly euphoric, good, grumpy or
just plain bad. I think that managers/leaders are in a position to exert a very
powerful influence on the mood in their organisation. In fact, the capacity to
be aware of one’s mood and then to regulate it has been shown in some
interesting research by Martyn Newman to be a necessary feature of good
leadership. It can be taken that the obverse is true.

So, I did promise in that blog to mention how one might
control one’s mood. The ability to regulate feelings is a common feature of
clinical work and with elite sports people. Both these groups of people have an
interest in being in control: the former because they want to feel better and
the latter because they want to perform at an optimum level. Perhaps there’s no
real different in the goals of either group. I’ve used this technique for anger
management, anxiety control, getting over being grumpy and controlling those
out of control moments.

The key to controlling one’s feelings, as I’ve mentioned
before, is being aware of how one is feeling at the time. Taken from the
Buddhist notion of being in the moment, this ability as become known as mindfulness.
Most of us, for most of the time, are on automatic pilot, controlled by our
unconscious mind as we rush hither and thither trying not to feel totally
overloaded. Our conscious mind has a limited capacity or RAM (for the computer
minded) and it can get overwhelmed if we try to pay attention to too much at a
time. To prevent the cup running over our unconscious mind takes control.

The problem with this, and we’ve all seen it, is the snappy
remark, curtness, withdrawal, the snarl, even a dressing down. Some people
start talking more, almost hypomanic, and seem to be on a high. Others just
disappear behind their desk and headsets. After such an event recovery of trust
and respect can be very difficult. Auto pilots are sometimes very naughty
people.

Mindful people are aware of what they are feeling and, to a
certain degree, thinking. If you are good at it then you are really tuning into
this moment, not the last ten mins or yesterday, not tomorrow or what you are
going to have for lunch, but right now. Really mindful people really pay
attention to what others are saying, they focus, rather than thinking about
what it is that they are going to say. They know how to listen.

I once met a man who was to become Prime Minister of
Australia. He had tremendous charisma and most of it came about because he
really paid attention and I felt as if I was really important to him when we
shook hands and exchanged information. After an hour long meeting with 20
people he was able to remember everyone’s name and summarised our discussion-no
notes taken at all. Maybe an eidetic memory helped but he was certainly
engaged.

The ability to control emotions then, and therefore resist
emotional contagion, is to be aware of changes to your emotional state. The
next trick is to pull yourself up. One way of doing this is to say ‘STOP’ in
your mind. Then have a brief conversation with yourself. It can be along the
lines of, ‘I don’t need to feel like this. It won’t help in the end and it is
better if I am in control of my emotions.’ Or, ‘I need to stay calm right now
and not get carried away’. Sometimes, with anxious feelings, it is enough to
simply say, ‘OK, I’m anxious right now but I don’t have to let it stop me doing
what I need to do. I’ll just ignore it and carry on’. You can make your own scripts
up but they need to be positive and not self-deprecating.

It is helpful to learn a quick relaxation trick to help with
the next bit, although it is not essential. Learning to breathe with your
diaphragm is a neat technique to relax or gain control. Find a small round (if
possible) rock in your garden and put it in the freezer. When it is nice and
cold find a quiet place, lay down, pull up your shirt and place the rock
directly on your belly button. It will focus your attention. Then practice
breathing in by pushing the rock upwards with your tummy and then breathing out
slowly. Don’t breathe with your chest-just your tummy. Breathe normally, not
deeply, and breathe once every 5 or 6 seconds-you can time yourself if you
like.

Make sure you breathe in through your nose and out through
your mouth. Nasal breathing appears to release chemicals that relax us if we do
it for around five- mins or more. If you practice this for about ten-mins
you’ll find yourself pretty efficient at diaphragmatic breathing. I learnt to
do this when I was in my late twenties and it has been a powerful way of
controlling my feelings, particularly anxiety.

Then, when you have had a talk to yourself, as above, you
can then just breathe with your diaphragm. Nice and slow, nice and easy.

The last little trick is to congratulate yourself when you have
been able to bring your feelings under control.

Sankaran, S, Hase, S, Dick, B & Davies, A.T. (2007), Singing different tunes from the same song sheet: four perspectives of teaching the doing of action research. Action Learning: Research and Practice, 5(3), 293-30.

Sankaran, G., Hase, S. & Sankaran, S. (2006), What Impact will the Research Quality Framework have on Knowledge Production and Diffusion in Australia’s New Generation Universities? International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management. 6(2), 55-62.

Hase, S., Phelps, R., Saenger, H., & Gordon-Thomson, J.,(2004). Sun, Surf and Scrub: Dimensions of Social Disadvantage in Communities in the Northern Rivers Region of NSW. The Australasian Journal of Business and Social Inquiry, 2(1). Available at http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/socialsciences/ajbsi/?menu=3_34/.

Hase, S. & Kenyon, C. (2003, September 25-27). Heutagogy and developing capable people and capable workplaces: Strategies for dealing with complexity. Proceedings of The Changing Face of Work and Learning conference, Alberta, Sept 25-27. Available at http://www.wln.ualberta.ca/events_con03_proc.htm.